The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs 86

T¹🔗he record of the testament of Naphtali, what things he ordained at the time of his death in the hundred and thirty-second year of his life.

²🔗 When his sons were gathered together in the seventh month, the fourth day of the month, he, being yet in good health, made them a feast and good cheer.

³🔗 And after he was awake in the morning, he said to them, I am dying; and they believed him not.

⁴🔗 And he blessed the Lord; and affirmed that after yesterday’s feast he should die.

⁵🔗 He began then to say to his sons: Hear, my children; ye sons of Naphtali, hear the words of your father.

⁶🔗 I was born from Bilhah; and because Rachel dealt craftily, and gave Bilhah in place of herself to Jacob, and she bore me upon Rachel’s lap, therefore was I called Naphtali.

⁷🔗 And Rachel loved me because I was born upon her lap; and when I was of young and tender form, she was wont to kiss me, and say, Would that I might see a brother of thine from my own womb, like unto thee: whence also Joseph was like unto me in all things, according to the prayers of Rachel.

⁸🔗 Now my mother was Bilhah, daughter of Rotheus the brother of Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, and she was born on one and the self-same day with Rachel.

⁹🔗 And Rotheus was of the family of Abraham, a Chaldean, fearing God, free-born and noble; and he was taken captive, and was bought by Laban; and he gave him Aena his handmaid to wife, and she bore a daughter, and called her Zilpah, after the name of the village in which he had been taken captive.

¹⁰🔗 And next she bore Bilhah, saying, My daughter is eager after what is new, for immediately that she was born she was eager for the breast.